I began in Paris with Givenchy and Balenciaga. But I was of mixed race and I was taken sort of hesitantly. NATASHA STAGGĬM I started modeling in 1954 when your grandmother was around, I presume.
Gigi’s daily mantra, she says, is, “Be kind, work hard, and make a friend,” because “you don’t know who those people are gonna go have dinner with and talk to that night.” Here, in a conversation between the 86-year-old Richard Avedon once called “probably the most beautiful woman in the world” and two of the most followed models working today, we learn about how the roles-and the rules-in fashion have started to favor, of all people, the nice ones.
Anyone who has met the sisters will likely use words like “the sweetest” or “we clicked” when describing them, and this includes other models. The idea, in fact, that Bella (18) and Gigi (20) are so supportive of one another feels somewhat fresh. Although their model mother, Yolanda Foster (star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, where the Hadid girls were first introduced to most of America), worked in a more insular industry, all of the Hadids are experts at making friends. Gone are the days of backstabbing, now that no one’s back is ever fully turned. It’s not just about who walked the most runways, but who has the most friends-and the lasting support of both friends and strangers. Love or hate it, the public eye’s acute focus on where every working model is at any given time-and with whom-has changed the name of the game to something resembling political democracy.
Not so today: in 2015’s catwalk culture, a model’s calling card is equal parts her Instagram account and her agency, making the atmosphere nothing short of a willing surveil- lance state. As the first non-Caucasian model to appear on the cover of a major American fashion magazine (Harper’s Bazaar, 1959), she’s seen it all and can attest to the diva stereotypes the industry has created and even celebrated. A lot has changed since China Machado started modeling in 1954.
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